I am not sure if this guy is the real enemy.
An organized force that works to make mt bikers look like land rapers is more realistic.
I am not sure who got south mt and watching closed but I am sure that they were organized and probably well connected.
Having 30+ mt bikes come to trail work days and put their money where their mouths are is a great force.
BTW.. I used to live on a dirt road in Maine where we would have skidding contests.
I have a long history of skidding.. But I try to resist when mt biking.
J_
He is not the real enemy, he is more a symbol of the worst case scenario. As Jamie noted, he is not taken all that seriously now, but he does espouse some ideas that anti-mtber's will use in debate, he has an audience in what I would call the far left, wilderness first folks. These are the people that consider humans a virus on the planet, and all open space is wilderness, closed to recreation of all kinds.
I am in the middle of this debate right now with South Mtn: 2 of the points he makes, one about hiking vs biking distances and trail impact, and user conflict (crazy mtb'ers literally running down hikers) are the 2 points concerning relatively moderate non-mtb'ers. And these are the moderate people. Elsewhere in Essex Co, we have people protesting the deer culling* that will occur. Death threats have been made... just to give you a sense of their politics, the Sierra Club of Essex Co is to right for these people.
* NJ is out of balance with deer. There is evidence everywhere that due to lack of predators, the deer are destroying the under story and altering the ecology of woods. I am told that when you see grass growing in the woods, instead of brush, this is deer at work, eating every shoot and sprout. South Mtn is amok with herds of deer, and you can see for hundreds of yards because all that is growing is old growth trees.
Anyway, back to the point: the title of my post really set the wrong tone. I did not want to say Vandeman was "the enemy", and that if he left the scene, our problems would be over. My intent of this post was to remind everyone that our community needs to be smart about how they act on trails, and what they say on boards. Because we've been extremely good stewards and users, guys like Vandeman have less impact with the people that matter: the land managers (like NYC Parks and Rec). When you have great people like NYCMTB taking an underutilized park and making it a gem of their park system,. Now, land managers say, "I like the mtb'ers, they're an asset". "This guy Vandeman, he's just angry, he's not helpful, and this dude Bogner is helpful". If we continue being assets, lnot asses (which basically was the problem with SoMo 15 years ago; in a nutshell: some people were ripping up trails and riding fast scaring people), we remain valuable and we retain these fun places to ride.
Its important to understand this oppsoing mindset and to understand that we have to be good examples, else we risk much. The backcountry bike club link is an excellent read. I think this is the most important take-away:
http://bbtc.org/php/show_page.php?page_id=32 said:
"The purpose of his posts is to annoy mountain bikers and manipulate them into making themselves look stupid, violent, or destructive. He then takes those posts and passes them on to people unfamiliar with mountain biking so they can form their own prejudiced, mis-informed conclusions about the sport."
